Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics With Some of Their ApplicationsBy: William Thomas Thornton (1813-1880)

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OLD FASHIONED ETHICS AND COMMON SENSE METAPHYSICS

With Some of Their Applications

by

WILLIAM THOMAS THORNTON

Author of a Treatise 'On Labour'

London
Macmillan and Co.
1873

All rights reserved

'I entirely agree with you as to the ill tendency of the affected
doubts of some philosophers and the fantastical conceits of others.
I am even so far gone of late in this way of thinking, that I have
quitted several of the sublime notions I had got in their schools
for vulgar opinions. And I give it you on my word, that since this
revolt from metaphysical notions to the plain dictates of nature
and common sense, I find my understanding strangely enlightened, so
that I can now easily comprehend a great many things which before
were all mystery and riddle.' BERKELEY'S HYLAS AND PHILONOUS.

PREFACE.

The book was all but finished, and only the Preface remained, over which
I was hesitating, apprehensive equally of putting into it too much and
too little, when one of the most frequent 'companions of my solitude'
came to my aid, shewing me, in fragments, a preface already nearly
written, and needing only a little piecing to become forthwith
presentable. Here it is.

'In these sick days, in a world such as ours, richer than usual in
Truths grown obsolete, what can the fool think but that it is all a Den
of Lies wherein whoso will not speak and act Lies must stand idle and
despair?' Whereby it happens that for the artist who would fain minister
medicinally to the relief of folly, 'the publishing of a Work of Art,'
designed, like this, to redeem Truth from premature obsolescence,
'becomes almost a necessity.' For, albeit, 'in the heart of the speaker
there ought to be some kind of gospel tidings burning until it be
uttered, so that otherwise it were better for him that he altogether
held his peace,' still, than to have fire burning within, and not to put
it forth, not many worse things are readily imaginable.

'Has the word Duty no meaning? Is what we call Duty no divine messenger
and guide, but a false, earthly fantasm, made up of Desire and Fear?' In
that' Logic mill of thine' hast thou 'an earthly mechanism for the
Godlike itself, and for grinding out Virtue from the husks of Pleasure?
I tell thee, Nay! Otherwise, not on Morality, but on Cookery, let us
build our stronghold. There, brandishing our frying pan as censer, let
us offer up sweet incense to the Devil, and live at ease on the fat
things he has provided for his elect,' seeing that 'with stupidity and
sound digestion, man may front much.'

Or, 'is there no God? or, at best, an absentee God, sitting idle ever
since the first Sabbath, at the outside of His universe, and seeing it
go?' Know that for man's well being, whatever else be needed, 'Faith is
one thing needful.' Mark, 'how, with it, Martyrs, otherwise weak, can
cheerfully endure the shame and the cross; how, without it, worldlings
puke up their sick existence, by suicide, in the midst of luxury.' Of
how much else, 'for a pure moral nature, is not the loss of Religious
Belief the loss?' 'All wounds, the crush of long continued Destitution,
the stab of false Friendship and of false Love, all wounds in the so
genial heart would have healed again had not the life warmth of Faith
been withdrawn.' But this once lost, how recoverable? how, rather, ever
acquirable? 'First must the dead Letter of Religion own itself dead, and
drop piecemeal into dust, if the living Spirit of Religion, freed from
this, its charnel house, is to arise on us, new born of Heaven, and with
new healing under its wings.'

Beside these burning words of Mr. Carlyle any additional words of mine
would stand only as superfluous foils, and are, therefore, considerately
pretermitted.